Tales From Night Vale
by Andian
Summary: There are some things even the man from the radio doesn't know about.
1. Chapter 1

He painted a lot these days.

He supposed his neighbors preferred that over the time he tried his hand at wood sculptures.

He also supposed he enjoyed the painting more than the wood sculpture though just with the wood sculptures he had the feeling he wasn't particularly good at it.

He tried painting the angels first and he thought that he could maybe give it Old Woman Josie or something but when the picture had been finished he turned it around and never looked at it again.

He wasn't sure why. He just know that he did not want to see what he had painted. Never again. Every time he tried to imagine the picture he had created, of the angel carrying Old Woman Josie's groceries he came up with a blank. The only thing he know was that he had used a lot of yellow and violet for it. Too much yellow and violet really.

He told himself to stop being paranoid -paranoid people ended up in a conversation with the Sheriff's Secret Police having to explain with great details the things they were paranoid about- and just continued painting.

He painted Desert Bluff then. He didn't know why. He was mostly indifferent to their neighbor city though he did boo them out like everyone else when Night Vale played against them. But he painted it and he painted it for two days straight with no pause in between. When he was finished he took the picture and and turned it around. Then he went and bought more red paint.

At this point he supposed that there might be something wrong with him. He wasn't sure what exactly it could be. He had gotten all the necessary vaccines against demonic possessions and he had always made sure to wash his hands after using a bloodstone. He called the public health office and asked about cases of demonic possessions forcing people to draw pictures they couldn't look at afterward but the only possessions that happened at the moment made people float two feet in the air and sing David Hasselhoff songs backwards.

He supposed he should go and see to a doctor but possessions weren't covered under his insurance plan so he just did the same thing his grandmother used to do and buried a headless chicken under a cactus while reciting sixteen prime number that ended with a seven.

That night he painted the vast and endless ice desert of the Antarctica with nothing but black. He put it away just like the two pictures before and then he shrugged. It wasn't that bad he supposed. The cost of buying paint wouldn't ruin him and even though he couldn't see the pictures he had drawn he supposed he might even could be a good artist. The idea of showing his pictures to somebody else occurred to him. When he regained consciousness he stood in his completely destroyed living room the words NO NO NO NO painted in every single one of his colors on the wall. It took him almost the rest of the day to clean it up and he was slightly angry since that really was a bit of an overreaction. **he grumbled as he cleaned his walls. **

**He didn't paint for three days after that. When he started painting again he painted Night Vale. He was absolutely sure that it was Night Vale. But when he was finished and turned it around he caught one brief look at the picture and what he saw was water. Just water. Nothing but water. **

**He blinked once and then he throw away all his painting utensils. He didn't paint for two weeks after that. Then he opened his eyes one morning and the first thing he saw were the garish pink letters above him spellin T. He had no idea who had written it on the ceiling and had managed to write it exactly at the point he first saw when he would open his eyes in the morning. **

**He went and bought new painting utensils the moment the shop had opened, ignoring the way Fred the shopkeeper tried to tease him about it. Back home he painted. And painted. And painted. The blank white back of the pictures he had drawn before and could for some reason neither look at nor throw away seemed to silently watch at him as he continued painting. **

**When he had finished painting he could not see his skin under the thick layers of paint on paint. **

**Silently he took every single one of the pictures and propped them up backwards against the walls of his living room. When he ran out of place he continued in his bedroom, then in his kitchen and when finally there were pictures leaning even against the walls of his bathroom, showing nothing but white to the inquiring eye he took the last picture in his hand and looked at it. **

**He saw himself. But not the way he looked. **

**His hair were gray, his eyes dull and his cheeks hollow. He looked more like a skeleton with a full beard than a human being. **

**And when he looked at his finger, stiffly holding the pictures he realized how thin they were. How little skin there seemed to be left under the thick layers of color. **

**Only bones it seemed. Bones painted with red and white and blue and black and pink and when he stumbled to the bathroom mirror a skeleton with a full beard grinned back him. **

**They found a house full of blank canvas with nothing on them but the wor written on it. **

**The public health office issued a reminder that the only thing that helped against demonic possessions were a good doctor and the crushed bones of small critters.**


	2. The Scratch

It was four in the morning. At least that was what the clock said. You could not trust the clocks in Night Vale though. She tried to close her eyes again and go back to her dream. She had been at a Thanksgiving dinner. Everybody had been there, or at least everybody who was dead. There were people there, people she had never meet but people she knew nonetheless from their skin and their bones, hidden as the might be. They had been sitting at a table and her mother had asked her to sit down with them.

It was a nice dream. She'd really like to fall asleep again.

But she couldn't. The Scratch was too close.

She had always loved silence. The complete absence of any noise. She slept with ear plugs, despised television and radio, especially the show of that one guy who always played that terrible music, and had bought a house as far away from other, noisy, people as possible.

What she did like was reading and tea. And sleeping. She loved sleeping. Sleeping had proven to be a fantastic way to ignore all the annoying, filled with way too much noise things that seemed to constantly happen. When the animals had started to fall from the sky she slept through every of the terrible loud splats that their impact caused. She had managed to sleep through the screams of Street cleaning day and Valentines Day and in her opinion it was a damn good way of living.

At the moment, though. At the moment there was The Scratch. The Scratch had started yesterday when she had very quietly sat in her chair and had, equally quietly, read a book. She had noticed The Scratch immediately and the moment she had noticed it it had become The Scratch in her mind.  
Beaks. Or rather one beak. A soft tapping against glass. Just … quieter. A small bird pecking against a window far away.

Something like that. She had never been good with metaphors.

Hated them even. Her former girlfriend had been a writer and she wouldn't stop comparing her eyes to everything that could be considered blue. Not that she was thinking about Linda at the moment.

No, she couldn't think with The Scratch. The Scratch seemed to follow her around. It should not be possible, yet it was. Leaving the living room after she heard The Scratch for the first time she had gone into her bedroom. When she had gone there The Scratch had already been there.

Like claws. Or rather a claw. A gentle scraping against wood. Just … quieter. A little cat scratching at a door far away.

She had stormed, very quietly, into the bathroom, almost loosing one of her slippers and had looked the door, equally quiet, behind her.  
Then she searched for her ear plugs in absolute silence. She found them, put them in and The Scratch did stop.  
She smiled and went back to her living room. The silence continued for precisely three hours twenty-two minutes and sixteen seconds.

Then The Scratch returned.

She had a very quiet breakdown. Then she got more ear plugs. It did not help this time.  
She went to bed and tried to sleep. The complete and utter silence that only existed in her head, usually so easy obtained eluded her.

It became four in the morning. And she still could hear it.  
Closer now. When it was two rooms and a rather thick wall before, now it was one room and maybe a couch away. Not a big couch. A small one. A small one with an rather ugly color Linda had insisted on keeping.

She closed her eyes but the darkness under her eyelids was filled with The Scratch.  
She did not believe in going mad. But it seemed like a good idea at the moment.  
When the sun rose she had started moving her furniture. Turned the whole house over, found nothing but a notebook Linda had left behind under the couch which she quickly put away. And yet the Scratch continued.

Close enough now, to know that whatever was causing it was in the same room.  
She sat down and tried to to read the Night Vale Daily Journal. After half an hour in which she had not managed to find even one article between the advertisements for Big Rico's pizza and the reminder that pens were illegal she made herself some more tea.  
Tea had, next to sleep, always been the one thing to calm herself down.

Not this time though. The Scratch was there.

Like pens. Or rather one pen. Scratching on a paper. Just … quieter. A writer trying to be quiet to not disturb a loved one.

She realized it that moment and if she was anybody else she would have cursed loudly. So she just stood up and got the notebook. It was green because Linda liked green and she knew that so she had bought a green one for her. It was also dusty since it had been under the couch.

And when she hold it in her hands The Scratch seemed to fill her ears.  
She was not stupid. She knew what happened to people who were stupid in Night Vale. She also knew what happened to people who were smart so she successfully stayed on the line between not stupid enough to die and not smart enough to get killed.

Linda had been smart. She had been very smart. Had always compared her eyes to everything that could be considered blue, her metaphors becoming more and more obscure until she had to smile and Linda laughed at her success.

She hated metaphors.

Realizing that she was just delaying the incredible stupid thing she was going to do anyway she opened the book.  
Your eyes are the vast and disturbing endlessness of summer day skies, mixed with the impenetrable uncertainty of the ocean the page she opened read.  
Somebody took two cornflowers and planted them into the two symmetrical holes in your head. it continued.  
The rest of the pages seemed to be pretty much the same, the compliments becoming cornier and cornier.  
She rolled her eyes and wanted to put the book away again.

Then she realized that The Scratch had almost completely stopped. Wearily she put the book down and The Scratch returned with an intensity that made her flinch. Quickly she grabbed the book again and The Scratch calmed down. Moving a page she noticed that noise of The Scratch varied. The closer she got to the beginning the louder it got and the more she got to the end the quieter it became. While she was no fan of cursed objects overall at least this one seemed ready to negotiate.

"I'll read the last pages and you will stop, okay?" she said quietly. The Scratch did not react but as Linda had said, it was always worth the try.  
Still not cursing but now grumbling inwardly she turned to the last few pages.  
Your eyes are the sky without the clouds feebly trying to shield us from its horrors  
"Back to the sky metaphors, I see. Seems like you're running out of ideas." she mumbled. She turned to the next page.  
No, I just know that you like them best.  
She did not throw the book away and screamed because that would cause so much unnecessary noise. Instead she flinched again.

"Linda?" she whispered, slowly turning the page.  
Yes.  
"Are you... are you in the book?" she asked, turning the page so quickly this time she almost teared it.  
No.  
"Are you sure?"  
Pretty much. Look, we're running out of pages here. I have to tell you something important.  
"What?" She turned the page  
I love your eyes.

Disappointment flushed through her. "That's all?" she asked, turning another page.  
No, it's just that you know the last thing I thought before I … you know was that I never told you that. Just metaphors. Always the metaphors.  
She said nothing. Just turned the page.  
You hate metaphors.  
"It's okay." she whispered. Turning another page.  
It's not. I'm sorry.  
"Don't be." she mumbled.  
You would like it here. It's quiet. So very quiet. I miss you.  
"I miss you too."

She turned to the last page. Vaguely noticed she was crying.  
Don't cry. It could ruin the paper, you know. She smiled through the tears. "Really Linda, is the stability of your paper more important than the feelings of your girlfriend?"  
Made you smile. I love you, Rebecca. "I love you too Linda."

She tried to turn the page before she remembered that it was the last one.  
For a brief moment she just sat there in silence. Then she put the book down.

"You know Linda, you had always problems with satisfying endings." she mumbled quietly.  
The Scratch had stopped.


End file.
